Stop Smoking, Start Training!

Let's face it, smoking is not easy to let go of, even if its dangers are well-known. However, if the few of you have some troubles stopping, start doing some simple exercises. Turns out, sports play an important part for the effort to stop smoking. Research indicates that smokers who do some workouts regularly have twice the success rate to stop smoking than smokers who do not do some workout regularly.

image credit to alternativehypnosisny.com

Cigarettes act as stress-reliever for a lot of smokers, and when they don't smoke, they can feel their stress level increasing. Fact is, working-out is the best stress-reliever and can replace your smoking addiction to relieve your stress. And for those who doesn't do workouts regularly, don't worry, because a research by Dr. Adrian Taylor and his team indicates that simple exercises such as walking around for 5 minutes can decrease your desire to smoke.

According to him, anything that can distract a smoker from smoking help decrease the urge to smoke. Meanwhile, sports will trigger the body to produce the hormone called dopamine that can decrease the nicotine dependency for smokers.

Other research also indicates that the higher your workout intensity, your success rate to suppress your smoking addiction is higher. You can do other workouts with higher intensity for 20 to 30 minutes 3 or 4 times a week. Do any sports you like, like jogging, cycling, swimming, tennis, basketball, etc.

However, this research also states that to quit smoking needs combination of sports and other techniques to stop other smoking habits. But still, there's no harm in trying their suggestion from those experts, because doing sports and other physical activities regularly are not only reducing the smoking addiction, they are also good for your health and fitness.

Overtraining

I've mentioned about overtraining a lot, but a lot of people still don't know what is the cause and symptoms. Through this post I'm going to share some info about overtraining, especially for those "noobs" (newcomers) in workouts and training.

I already posted about the importance of recovering after a training. You can read it here. If you don't have enough rest and just workout everyday, what you're doing is overtraining.

image credit to fitnessgurusam.com

Overtraining can be caused by:
- Too much training or workout in a week
- Too many equipment in one workout session. Use 4 to 5 equipment only, and don't use all the equipment for training variations. You will tire yourself.
- Too much set, or training for too long. Some even do it for 3 hours. You only need to do 3 to 4 sets per equipment, no need to do 10 sets.
- Lifting weights that are too heavy in a long time.

Symptoms or indications of overtraining that you have to be aware of:
- The loss of power in your body. You may wonder why you train often but your strength is not as strong as it was before. It might be the cause of overtraining.
- Prolonged exhaustion.
- Sleep-deprived, or got no sleep at all.
- Decreasing appetite.
- Prolonged muscle-pains.
- Mood swings.
- No passion to train or have some workout.
- Decreasing immunity, for example, prone to flu, catch a cold, and body recovery is slowed down.

Few things you can do to prevent overtraining:
- Manage your training so that you have enough rest. It doesn't mean that you can't train everyday. Read my previous post about this.
- Add some variations into your training.
- Don't achieve Failure Set in EACH SET every time you train and in EVERY TRAINING SESSION.
- Add some more other activity like treadmill or some other cardio into your weight-lifting training.

Sure enough, workouts can make you healthy and stronger. But you also have to remember to manage your training. Train smarter, not harder!

Why You're Not Getting the Results from Your Workout

If you've been following my posts since the very beginning (and I hope you do), and yet still don't get the results, this is the post that will answer your question. Don't even think about supplements to get faster results  before you read this post first.

Before asking which supplements to use, we have to realize that there are many factors that involves in body-building efforts. Even stress can thin out your body. Here I will share few factors that you may have to reevaluate when you don't get the results from your workout or your training.

image credit to thelegalcommune.com

1. Rest
Have you have enough rest? How long do you sleep in a day? Of course, every person is different in terms of sleeping needs, but the standard sleeping time is 7 to 9 hours a day. When we sleep, our body produces growth hormones that can repair the broken cells. Besides the sleeps at night, you also have to pay attention to the resting time between each training. You won't build your chest muscles when you train it everyday. Give at least two or three days gap before you train it again in the next workout.

2. Train Hard for the Designated Muscles
Let's say you want to build your biceps, and you don't get the results. Reevaluate your training: was it "hard" enough? Some say that it was hard enough, but they do the same pattern with the same weight every time (and didn't do the overload principal). Add more weight over time because your muscles will get used to the same weight you're using every time, making your training pointless. It's like when we were in school in 1st to 6th grade, the lessons get harder everytime, right?

3. Variations
Use some variations in your training so that your muscles don't get bored. When you do the same training pattern every time, your body will adapt, and won't respond much to your training. Use different order when you train, different weights, different resting time between each set, and different sets to "surprise" your muscles and triggers them to adapt and develop.

4. Did you do cardio before your weight training?
What usually happens is people do cardio before their weight training. They thought that it was just a warm up. You do have to do a little cardio before you train for a warm up, but what people usually did is that they did it too hard, and sometimes, too long. You don't have to run in the treadmill for 30 minutes as a warm up. This will tire you in your weight training, and will significantly hamper your effort to build your body. Do your cardio after your weight training.

And that's the four basic things that you have to reevaluate when you reach a plateau (no progress) in your training. If you do them all right, then reevaluate your nutrition. Did you consume enough nutrition your body needs to build your body? It doesn't matter if you want to lose weight or want to gain some, your daily nutrition needs is important.

Run, Forrest, Run!

Want to run in full speed? Make sure your training is not in vain, by checking out these tips to maximize your performance in running or jogging.

image credit to fitnessgurusam.com

1. Choose the right shoes. Don't use old shoes or soccer shoes to run. Instead, use some running shoes and use it for 600 kilometers. Don't use the same shoes to run continuously, because the soles under the shoes will decay rapidly. Buy spare shoes to run and use them alternately.
2. I said this before and I'll say it again: rest is important. Don't force your body to run everyday. Make some intervals in your running days with resting days, so that your body have enough time to recover.
3. Breathe properly when you run. Long breaths are needed in running so that oxygen can fill all air cavities inside your lungs.
4. Have something to eat a few hours before you run. Choose foods that are slow-absorbed so that it will give you some energy for few hours ahead. Before you run, you can also drink supplements like Carbo Booster which can energize you without feeling too full.
5. Warm-up is important. Don't start to run as fast as you can when you just started. Start by warming up your legs by walking, then power-walk, start to jog, then run as fast as you can.
6. Remember to cool down to prevent cramps or any other injuries after your training.
7. Ready yourself mentally. Besides strong stamina, running needs strong mentality too. Focus yourself to your goal and fight to achieve those goals.

Ready to run?

Beginner's Guide to Build Your Body

In the previous post, I've shared about how to gain weight ideally. In this post, I'm going to share about what you have to do when you want to build your body. By "build", I mean gaining some weight or losing some weight. Either way, they are quite the same, with some differences here and there.

image credit to smithalan00.hubpages.com

The Guide:
- measure your body - as in your biceps, chest, legs, all of them.
- train YOUR WHOLE BODY, including your legs even if you only want to show off your upper-body, because this will help you produce the growth hormone which will help you build ALL THE MUSCLES.
- you have to keep in mind that you can't get a six-pack while you're bulking (thickening your muscles)
- train your stomach, but you have to remember that you can get a six-pack after you attenuate the fat in your stomach with diets.
- it's ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE to thicken your muscles (bulking, also known as gain weight) while losing some weight (cutting)
- when you want to bulk up, get a realistic goal. Gaining 0,5 - 1 lb per week of lean muscle mass is impressive already.

The Diet:
- find out your body type to determine your diet strategy.
- use the 40% protein, 40% carbs, and 20% fat benchmark for your diet, while keeping your body's needs (everyone is different).
- for carbs, choose complex carbs instead of simple sugars.
- for fat, avoid saturated fat, and choose good fat such as flax seed, fish, peanut butter, and olive oil.
- drink as much water as you can (but don't get too bloated up).
- it's better to consume too many calorie than not get enough, especially for those with ectomorph type of body. You can adjust your calorie intake if it's too much when you can see some fat in your body when you take a look at yourself in the mirror :)

The Training:
- train you muscles at least once a week AS INTENSIVE AS YOU CAN, but not more than 1 hour.
- 45 to 55 minutes are your "developing window" to build your muscles. More than that, your body will go catabolic.
- never think that when your muscle pain is gone you can train it again the next day. You can see more about the recovery time here.
- never push yourself too hard (overtrain). TRAIN, EAT, REST, and you'll get your results :)
- take a week off every 8 weeks, and start training again with new routines.
- remember to stretch and warm up before workout or training to prevent injury.
- take about 90 to 120 seconds to rest between each set. Read more about this here.
- make sure you do the motions correctly. Doing it wrong can injure you, or doesn't give you the results you want.
- start with compound movement, and end with isolation movement.
- after 2 or 3 sets of warm up, start to GO HEAVY for a round, 3 sets to failure.
- take notes of your progress so you can track it down.

The Supplements
- multivitamin with enough vitamin C
- try Creatine, Glutamine, and ZMA
- Whey Protein is compulsory if you can get some, but make sure the protein from REAL FOOD is fulfilled.

Gaining Weight the Right Way

In losing some weight, the usual advice is that the calorie intake has to be smaller than those that are out. If the calorie intake is more than what the body needs, the body will store the excess calories as fat. However, if the calorie intake is equal than those that are out, our body won't gain or lose some weight. But is it that simple?

There are some articles on the internet that explain about the BMR to count the daily calorie needs to maintain weight. More than the BMR rate, we'll gain weight; and less than that, we'll lose some. However, the fact is different.

For example, a thin person with 50 kg in weight and 175 cm in height eats 2500 calories a day. If he's not losing or gaining some weight, then we can assume that 2500 calorie intake is equal than those that are out. Let's say he wants to gain weight, and do what people usually do: eat more, especially before he sleeps (because as we know, this is considered to be "forbidden" for those who wants to lose some weight), eats ice cream and chocolates as desserts, then goes to sleep. It's quite clear that the calorie intake is more than 3500 calories a day, yet he still complains that his body is still thin (by now he can be regarded as a person with ectomorph type of body, which is a body that has fast metabolism, which makes them hard to gain weight).

Then what about the above theory? Why is he not gaining any weight even if he increases his daily calorie intake for more than 40%?

First, you have to take into account that human's body always tries to keep its fat level point in a balanced and stable condition. This also happens in ectomorph type of body, where they have low level of fat and unable to store big quantities of fat.

It's also known that it's better to not eat a lot at the same time, because our body will only absorb a few, and the rest will be stored as fat. However, for those with ectomorph type of body, they can't store fat, thus their body speed up their metabolism to dispose the new "fats" that are supposed to be stored.

This is the concept of Fat Level Point, where the body will always try to maintain the fat level in its stable condition. Some call this as the condition where the fat people find it hard to lose weight, and the skinny people find it hard to gain weight. With this concept, it's clear that eating more is not the solution to gain weight ideally.

Those with ectomorph type of body can only gain weight by enhancing their muscle mass (not their fat, because it won't work). To add some muscle mass, they have to lift some weight with medium or heavy weight. They also have to eat right for their muscle recovery.

Even for those who wants to gain weight, they also have to eat 5 or 6 times a day with medium portions. That meal plan is necessary so that the food intake will be optimally absorbed. Medium portions will make sure the excess calories won't be stored as fat and get disposed by the body.

In the next post, I'm going to share a quick guide to gain weight in a healthy way :)

Recovery Time after Each Training

There are a lot of questions that usually come from gym newbies that I have shared in the previous posts. For example, I've shared about how much weight you have to lift, resting time between each set, and now, I'm going to share about the suggested amount of recovery time after the workout.

People usually start to workout when they want to shape their body. The reasons are various, some want to lose weight, some want to build their muscles and get buff. However, in achieving our goal, we tend to want to get the fastest results. We thought that the harder we train, the faster we'll get to that goal.

Like many aspects of our lives, doing something excessively is not always good. It's the same with workouts. Training harder won't get the best results, only increase the accident risks.

When we train, we're stressing our muscles that it creates tiny rips in our muscles. When we rest, our body will repair those rips, making our muscles stronger. This process will be repeated over and over again until we reach the goal of our training. Therefore, enough rest and nutrition is as important as the workout itself.

image credit to tascha.ch

Always rest your muscles for at least 24 hours. But that doesn't mean that if we train our chest muscles today, we can't train our back the next day. What I mean is, the same muscle group should not be trained constantly, because it won't get the chance to recover. Therefore, if you do full body training in one workout, it should not be more than 3 times a week.

However, if you train one muscle group in one training, then you better arrange your training schedule. For example, if you train your chest on Monday, train your legs on Tuesday, shoulder and back on Wednesday, then train your chest on Friday. You can see in that example that that way, you're training your chest and giving it a couple days to rest.

This method is used by people who understands about recovery and trains very hard so that their body needs longer time to rest. Even professional bodybuilders rest their muscles for 5 days before starting another training. It doesn't mean that you train once in every 5 days, but with the above pattern, they give long enough rest so that their muscles are getting the maximum recovery.

There are still a lot of gym newbies that haven't understand the importance of recovery time. They thought that by training harder and more often, they'll get the results faster.

Remember, train smarter, not harder!

The Weight You Have to Lift

We see often in gyms, where gym enthusiasts, rats, or gym freak - whatever you may call it - lift ginormous weights. They usually large in size (but not ripped), and lift weight like crazy. When gym noobs (newbies) enter the gym, there should be feelings of inferiority that makes sure that they can't lift weights like those gym enthusiasts.

image credit to dreamstime.com

"Well they've been training for years, and I just started."

This mindset is what make us lift weights that are "light enough" that don't necessarily embarrass us if, at some point, we can't lift it anymore. But are there any chance to know the ideal weight for our training?

Before we get to that, you have to remember that the first time you go to a gym, or just started going for a few times, you better get acquainted to all available equipment. The suggested reps is about 12 to 15 reps. Remember, this is so that you're accustomed to the equipment and know their functions.

After a few days of training and understanding the equipment, you will then know your strength. For example, in training your biceps, maybe 10 or 15 kg of weight is heavy enough for you, but in Bench Press you'll probably strong enough to lift 20 to 25 kg. Your understanding about your own ability is really important to monitor your training progress.

Now you know your strength, then what?

Next, you have to define your goal. I've said it before in my previous post about how long you have to rest between each set, that the weight you have to lift also depends on your goal. There are no rigid standards in defining your goal either, because it's more of an art than a science, since each body is different than the other.

For you who trains just for health reasons (or just to get fit), choose a weight, and lift it in 10 to 12 reps. Make sure you reach the failure in the 10th or 12th rep. If you can do more than 12 reps, it means your weight choice is not heavy enough. Choose the right weight for you using this guide.

Using the same guide, if you want to burn some fat, the suggested reps is about 8 to 10 reps per set, with the 8th or 10th rep as the failure point. Of course, at this point, the weight you have to lift is heavier than when you just want to get fit, right? The same thing also put into effect when you want to build your body and gain some weight. The suggested reps is about 6 to 8 per set.

The last category is for those who want to increase their muscle strength. For example, when you usually can  Bench Press with 25 kg in 10 reps, and want to lift more than 25 kg, then train with the heaviest weight you can lift with only 3 to 4 reps per set. With the heaviest weight possible, you can rest longer before starting another set.

Once again, this guide is the most basic guide, and every individual can adapt in their own way. For example, I usually choose the 8 to 10 reps to burn some fat, because I usually do some other training in one workout. Keep in mind that trained muscles help you burn some more fat :)

Resting Time between Each Set

In training in gyms, we usually don't mind in how long we have to rest in each set of the training. The usual answer to this is "enough so that we're not cooling down". But actually, is there any standards or criteria on how long we rest in each set?

There's no certain way in counting how long you have to rest, but there is a guide that you can use, depending on your training. I've said it before that before you start to lift some weight, you have to know the exact goal of your training. Maybe you want to burn some fat, tone your body, increase your stamina, or anything specific. This is important, because it will determine your resting time between each set.

If you want to increase your stamina, usually the resting time between each set is as short as possible, about 30 seconds before starting another set. If you want to tone your body, increasing the muscle mass, the suggested resting time is between 30 to 90 seconds with a medium weight. However, if you want to train your strength and increase your one RM, the resting time is usually longer, about 2 to 5 minutes because the weight you lift is definitely heavier.

Gym "Slangs" for Dummies

After knowing the right way to lose some weight, there are a lot of people that starts to consider coming to the gym to lift some weight. The common first difficulty is understanding the gym terms or slangs that are usually unfamiliar for people who enters the gym for the first time.

image credit to 123rf.com

Let's say the instructor told you to bench press for 4 sets, with full range of motion. Or some people ask you, what is your one RM. For "gym rats", those terms are not new. But for those who just started to workout, where even going to the gym is a big thing, those terms are making them more uncomfortable to start. From this background, this article will help you know the basic terms that are commonly used in gyms.

- Strength, refers to your muscle power where your strength is measured with how many weights you can lift.
- 1 RM or One Rep-Max is the heaviest weight you can lift perfectly for once. If you can lift some more, that's not one RM.
- Endurance, refers to your muscle endurance in lifting some weight. For example, you can lift dumbbells to train your arms for 12 reps or 15 reps. In the mean time, there are others who can only lift it for 6 reps. That means their endurance is lower than you.
- Specificity, which is the commonly used term for weight-training. It means that when you want to strengthen up your arms, then you have to lift weight with your arm-muscles, and not our legs. If you want to build your shoulders, that means you have to train your shoulder muscles. That's the principal of specificity. This term is commonly mixed up with the myth that to burn the fat in your stomach you have to do some sit-ups.
- Overload. To train your muscles, increase the strength and endurance, you have to force your muscles to train more than its capacity. Increasing the intensity can be done with a few way, such as increasing the weight, adding more reps, reducing the interval from each set, and many more. If you don't understand this principle, you won't get any progress from your workout.
- Repetition or rep, is one full motion. For example when you lift the dumbbell from the shoulder, moving to the top of the head, and back to the shoulder. That one full motion is 1 repetition or 1 rep.
- Range of Motion, is full range of motion when you lift weight. If you lift the weight from your shoulder, moving up to the top of your head, and stops halfway, back to the original position, then it's only half range of motion. Some call it half rep.
- Failure, is the condition in which we can't get anymore rep. The right training is when you achieve your failure point. For example, when you have to do 10 reps, it means the failure is when you do the 10th rep. Most people think they have to stop at 10 when they can still do some more reps. What they should do is find a weight that is heavy enough, until you achieve failure or can't do more reps, right when they're at the 10th rep.
- Recovery. There are two kinds of recovery. The first is when after we lift a weight for 10 reps and need a break for few seconds or minutes before starting another set. This break is called recovery time. There's also the recovery time when we're done training 1 group of muscles. For example, after you train your chest, it needs 48 hours of recovery before you can start training again.
- Set is a set  of reps. When you lift weight for 10 to 12 reps and put down your dumbbell, that's 1 set. After 1 set, we need a break for a few seconds or minutes before starting another set which consists of 10 to 12 reps.
- Routine, is a term usually used to represent a pattern or sequence of exercise that we use. How many set, which equipment(s), how many reps, how long, how many times a week, it's called a routine for our training. It's better if you change your routine after a few weeks. Some do it after a few months. This is so that your body does not saturate, and you're not bored of doing something over and over again.

That's the basic terms that people usually use in gyms. By now, you should understand the "language", and not feel inferior to ask around and start training. Remember your diet after the training to get the maximum results :)

Wrong Confidences to Burn Fat

For some time, going to Gyms has become a new trend for teenagers and adults, men and women, in their effort to get a better, ideal body. Some want to gain weight, some want a toned body, and lots of them want to lose weight. However, too much information creates some "myths" about training and workout to burn fat.

Some of them are:
1. Going to gym, do the cardio for 30 to 45 minutes, then lift some weight.
First and foremost is to do cardio to burn fat, thus do it first while I got the energy, for 30 to 45 minutes. Get some rest, and lift some weight so I can get a "bonus" of a well-shaped body.

The above statements are 99% of what people think when they want to lose some weight. But the truth is, cardio in the beginning of the workout won't burn fat as much as we thought it should be. Think what you want, but that's just not what happens.

Fact is, cardio in the beginning of the workout burns our blood-sugar until it almost run out if we do it for 30 to 45 minutes. The weight-lifting afterwards only needs blood-sugar, thus make us feel limp and out of energy. If the weight-lifting needs sugar, but the sugar is used up on the cardio, what will happen? Our body will take the proteins as the "new sugar" for energy supply. Problem is, protein are taken from your muscle. Shaping your muscles by taking the protein from your muscles is like destroying your own body.

Lift some weight first, then do the cardio for an optimal fat-burn. You'll get hungry after the first 10-15 minutes of cardio. This is good, because it means your body is burning the fat as you do it.

2. Running in treadmill can burn fat.
If cardio can burn fat, then the harder we train then more fat will be burn. Fact is, running doesn't burn much fat. The faster we run, our body needs "fast energy", which is the blood sugar. The fat-burning process (which converts fat into energy) is a timely process, but running needs energy fast. Our body automatically ignores the fat and burn the blood-sugar instead. If we run out of blood-sugar, yet still runs, then our body will take more protein from the muscles for its energy.

To burn fat in treadmill, you only need to power-walk, with the target heart rate of 65%. Do it about 45 minutes everyday, and you'll lose some weight gradually.

3. The sweatier we get, more fat will be burn.
This myth are engraved in the minds of those who want to lose some weight. They think that workout can burn fat, and working out so hard can make them sweat more. This is why some people just do anything to get sweaty.

Well that's just ridiculous isn't it? If burning fat is that easy, then we can just lying around at a park in the middle of the afternoon when the sun is at its highest. I'm sure we'll get sweaty in 10 minutes or so, right?

Sweat are produced by the glands under our skin to keep our body temperature. It's not a standard fat-burning results, because when we workout in a really cold place, we don't sweat, and yet we will burn some fat. Working out until you get sweaty can be very satisfying, but don't make it a benchmark of how much you burn your fat.

4. Weight-lifting only trains the muscles and are not necessary to lose some weight.
You can ask the women around you who ignores their weight-lifting training when they want to lose some weight. Fact is, the fat-burning process actually occurs in our muscle cells. The more we train our muscles, it's faster to burn the fat. If you want to lose weight, either you're a man or a woman, it's better to get used to weight-lifting.

Fact is, to lift some weight our body needs the energy inside our muscle cells called the ATP. The ATP will run out when we train, thus we feel exhausted. After the training, when we're resting, our body will produce more ATP. This process uses fat as its fuel. Turns out, weight-lifting can burn more fat - not only when you train, but after the training too.

5. Sit-up can thin down the belly (I don't do much sit-up, that's why my belly is plumpy)
I heard people say things like doing sit-ups 100 times a day, but their belly is not getting thinner. Seriously, a sit-up is a training to train your abdominal muscles, and got no relations whatsoever to burn some fat in your belly. Muscles and fat are two different things, thus sit up won't burn the fat in that region. Imagine a fat person who manages to lose a lot of weight. You'll see that their plump cheeks get thinned down too. But that doesn't mean that he/she trains her cheeks, right?

6. Signing-up and coming to gym is burning my fat (I don't know I'm still fat)
When you pay attention to some friends who want to get thin, losing a few kg of fat in their body, the first thing they do is going to a gym, sign-up, and start working-out. Without a clear goal, they train their body by cycling or running in a treadmill, then walk around to try out the equipments. After 3 to 4 weeks, they won't feel any changes in their body. They insist that they've trained, burn some fat because they've "worked-out" in a fancy gym.

Well, yeah, they do workout (and it's better than just sleeping and lying around all day), but what they do is not enough. They don't try hard enough in lifting those weights. Some even say that they're old and not as strong as the youngsters. Whatever it is, there's always a reason that stands in the way of their effort to lift heavier weight, or training more intensely.

You have to decide on a goal. Three to fours weeks in a gym without any changes means what you do is wrong. Find an instructor, a personal trainer, anything to fix that. Try to make some effort to get the results! You can also check this post for some tips to start losing some weight.

Why Weight-Lifting is Necessary for Women

I've known quite a lot of woman in my life who say that they don't want to lift some weight, because they are afraid their muscles will get too big like the body-building guys. This is sad, because they still don't get why they have to lift some weight.

We can all have the debate about how men and women are equal beings, but in terms of physical things, we are different. An extreme example is when a man and a woman trains in a gym with the same weight, eat the same amount of proteins, and trains as long. What will we get? The man will get more muscular than the girl. This is because guys produce more testosterone than girls do, which will make the muscles get bigger, about 100 times more than girls. You can imagine the difference right?

image credit to epicfitnesstraining.com

Besides that, because of the genetic differences, it doesn't matter how hard you train your body, women's muscles can't expand and bigger than men. Instead, women's muscles will condense or tightens when trained, even with the heaviest weight.

Women have more fat than men. When you train your muscles, as it condense and tightens, those fat will diminish. The fat will be burned in your muscles, therefore, the more muscles you have, it means your "fat-burning stoves" will multiply, and this is exactly what you want, right?

Let's see how many overweight girls in the gym. They immediately jump into the treadmill, every time. They do it everyday, and will only lose 1 to 2 kg without achieving their dream weight. This is because they don't add weight-lifting into their training.

Therefore, girls, don't be afraid to lift some weight. Besides tightening you body, you will also burn more fat, and therefore, get sexier body ;)

Beginner's Guide to Weight-Lifting

Finally, the post about workouts! To this point, I've posted a lot about healthy foods, and how to keep your health. This is because it's really important to know what food is good for you, before training your body.

For beginners in weight-lifting and bodybuilding (people usually call this as "fitness"), looking for workout programs on the internet, sports magazines, guidebooks, even asking the gym-instructors are the first things you have to do. Those experts and sources of information usually teach a lot of things, such as 4x10 bench press. But what does it mean? Does that mean 4 sets with 10 reps? It's not that simple.

Many people gives information that the right training is by lifting one weight in 4x10 count. But first, you have to know the goal of that training. To gain some muscle mass? To tone your body (usually women), or just a number to make us know an equipment and get used to use them before doing a more intensive training?

image credit to healthnutblogger.com

I will only give you one example, which is to gain some muscle mass. What you have to do is to reduce your reps from the 10 count, and making it 6 reps. In 6 reps, it means use the weight in which in the sixth rep you're unable to lift more. People stop at the sixth rep instead, when they usually can lift more. That means the weight you lift is not maximized for your muscle growth.

The weight you lift has to be as much as possible so that when you see 4x10, it means 4 sets, and with each set use the weight where in 10 reps you can't lift some more, instead of doing 4 sets and stops at the tenth rep. So, when your instructor tells you to lift 10 reps, it means you have to use the weight which you can't lift more on the tenth rep.

I repeated the explanation quite a lot, didn't I? It's because people still misunderstand on this. It's really important to understand before going further into your training.

For each training session, it's better if you don't train for more than an hour. Therefore, train intensively using the 6 reps knowledge that I told you about. The total set you have to do for each training is 9 to 12 sets, which means when you use 3 sets for each equipment, then that means it's better to just use 3 to 4 equipments.

It's also important to concentrate your training. It doesn't mean that when you want to gain some biceps mass you train it everyday. You won't get the results. You'll get the results outside of the gym, actually, especially when you sleep. In gyms, what we do is "destroying" our muscles. I will post more info about this

In conclusion, train as intensively as you can in the given time, go home, eat, and get some rest. I told you before, you can have the talk after the training, not in-between sets.

Good luck!

How to Read Nutrition Facts

Prepare yourself, folks, this is gonna be another long - yet important - post.

In this post, I mentioned about reading nutrition facts. Well nowadays, food producers have to include the ingredients and the nutrition facts in their product. Those facts are a tool to help you choose the food that is good for you. This is why in this post, I will share the knowledge of reading these facts.


Reading the Ingredients
The ingredients list gives your the information of the foodstuffs, seasonings, and chemicals in that product. The ingredients are written in order of their weight. The most-used ingredient is the first in the list, and the least-used ingredient is the last. Avoid foods that state fat, oil, and sugar (or derivatives of those) as their most-used ingredient. And also, if you never heard of the ingredient, or you're having a hard time mentioning it, it's most likely chemicals, or unnatural foodstuff.


Reading the Nutrition Facts
This table will give you more details on the product. You will know the contents of that product, therefore you can choose the healthiest ones. When you compare some foods, make sure you compare them with the same amount of portions.

image credit to duniafitnes.com

1. Serving Size: shows you the recommended portion or serving size. If you're not used to measure or weigh food, measure it to a standard portion. If you eat less or more than the recommended portion, then the information on the Nutrition Fact will have to be adjusted to know the nutrition you consume. For example, if you eat it twice the size of the serving suggestion, then all the nutritional value will have to be multiplied by two.

2. Calories: shows you how much energy you'll get from one portion of that food. You have to remember that the number of portions you eat determines the calories you eat. For example, if you eat two portions of food, it means you consumes twice the amount of calories that are stated in the Nutrition Facts. One of the measurement that you can use as a base to assess whether it's high-calorie or not is from this:

• 40 calories = low
• 100 calories = average
• 400 calories or more = high

3. Calories from Fat: shows you how much calories that comes from fat. Every gram of fat worth 9 calories. It should be no more than 30% of calories a day that comes from fat. Therefore, it's best if you consume no more than 3 grams of fat or 30 calories of fat per 100 calories of food.

4a. Total Fat: shows you how much good fat is good fat (monounsaturated fat and polyunsaturated fat) and bad fat (saturated fat and trans-fat) in a food. As stated before, it's best to consume fat no more than 3 grams per 100 calories. When you compare foods, see the sum of total fat, saturated fat, and their calories for each serving. Choose the one with the least amount of fat.

4b. Saturated Fat: bad fat or saturated fat can be found in many kinds of food such as butter, margarine, fat from beef and pork, full-cream milk, eggs, coconut and coconut oil, and also in fast-foods. It's better if you avoid or limit the food that contains saturated fat. The daily consumption of this kind of fat should not be more than 10% of the calories that you consume in a day (less than 1 gram per 100 calories).

4c. Trans Fat: trans fat are also bad fats that forms in the cooking process. This kind of fat commonly found in commercial food products and have to be avoided in diet.

5a. Cholesterol: the number of cholesterol shows the total amount of cholesterol, which consists of good cholesterol (HDL) and bad cholesterol (LDL) for each serving. It's better if your cholesterol consumption is not more than 300 mg a day. Choose the product that have the least amount of cholesterol.

5b. Sodium: shows the number of sodium in each portion. It's better if the consumption is not more than 2.400 mg a day. Choose the product with the least amount of sodium.

6a. Carbohydrate: shows the sum of carbohydrate in foods, including simple carbohydrates and sugar, and also complex carbohydrate and fibers. When your food contains carbohydrate, it's better if that carbohydrate contains many fiber.

6b. Dietary Fiber: shows the amount of fiber in each serving. This can be found on complex carbohydrate such as wheat and grains, fruits, vegetables, and beans. Try to consume 20 to 35 grams of fiber each day. The higher the amount of fiber in a product, the amount of sugar is lower.

6c. Sugar: this shows the amount of carbohydrates for each serving from sugar. The best way to choose the least amount of sugar is by looking at the total amount of sugar and the total of amount of carbohydrate. The closer it is the value to the total amount of carbohydrate, it contains less fiber.

7. Protein: shows the total amount of protein for each serving. It's highly recommended to keep the balance of protein, carbohydrate, and fat in food. If the food you choose does not contain protein, add another food with protein in it.

8. % Daily Values: shows the percentage of your daily nutritional adequacy from that product. Note that this based on 2000 calories diet. Generally, 5% of daily value is considered to be low and 20% of daily value is considered to be high.

9. Vitamin and Mineral: shows how many vitamins and mineral in each serving. You have to achieve 100% for all the required vitamin and mineral. You can also consume multivitamins to make sure you have enough vitamin and mineral for the day.

10. Recommended Amount(s): shows the recommended daily amount of each nutrition for 2000 calories and 2500 calories diet. If you need to consume more or less than 2000 or 2500 calories a day, the recommended amount of fat, carbohydrate, and protein also change.

11. Calories per Gram: shows the amount of calories in each macro-nutrients (fat, carbohydrate, and protein). It's better if you choose a balanced food, which contains all those nutrients.

After knowing how to read Nutrition Facts in foods, you can better the quality of the food you eat, now that you know how to choose the healthier foods :) 

Why Seafood is Good

There are many reasons as to why consuming seafood are good. Besides that it have a good taste when we process it into many variations of food, seafood are sources of high-quality proteins that are low in fat in cholesterol, and also act as sources for vitamin B12, vitamin D, magnesium, and Omega 3 fatty acid which are good for your heart and blood veins.

image credit to ocean.nationalgeographic.com

Some of the seafood, such as clams, deep-sea fishes, and crabs are delicious and high in nutrition. Clams and crabs are high in vitamin B12 that supports the nerves and brain, and also minerals such as zinc, magnesium, and potassium. Meanwhile, deep-sea fishes such as salmon, tuna, or mackerel are the best sources for Omega 3 fatty acid, that can help you prevent heart diseases.

Omega 3 is known for good fatty acid that can help reduce the the risk of getting heart disease, stroke, and many kinds of cancers. Better yet, foods that are high in Omega 3 are related to positive-mood change. In other words, fishes can be functioned as a therapeutic cure for mild depression!

Fish and seafood are also good for pregnant women for their fetus' brain growth, and also reduces the risk of premature birth. Besides that, other nutrition in fish and seafood like protein and vitamin, all are good for our health.

It's clear that consuming fish and other kinds of seafood is so good, that the American Heart Association (AHA) recommends to eat fish at least twice a week. More importantly, if you have a heart disease, AHA recommends if you have a high-Omega 3 diet by eating fish every day. Therefore, by start consuming these sea delicacies in our everyday diet also plays a role for a healthy heart.

So, got fish?

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 :)

12 Easy Steps to Lose Some Weight (Part 1)

Here's a post that you have to read carefully, because it will answer the questions that people ask relentlessly: what do I have to do to lose weight? What kind of sport do I have to do? What kind of diet that I should do? I've done my diet, but why do I get ulcers instead of losing some weight?

That was just some of the questions that I get from the people around me, or in some social medias where people complain about their weight or imperfect body parts. So here I'm going to give you the steps on what you have to do to lose some weight.

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1. Take notes on your body's initial status. Measure your waist, thighs, arms, and chest. Weigh your weight, and find out the fat percentage in your body. This sounds silly, but it's actually important to keep track of your progress, and to evaluate the mistakes.

2. Make a realistic goal in your first month, such as losing 2 to 3 kg. Don't expect to lose 10 to 15 kg in your first month of dieting. The more realistic your goal is, the more motivated you are when you achieve and reaching the next goals.

3. Start working out. Whatever the sport is, it's better than just sleeping at home. For those who really want to lose weight, start investing your time to achieve your goal. When you want to lose weigh, don't EVER say that you don't have the time to workout. It's like saying you want to buy a car, but you don't want to work to get it. You have to fight for it! How you manage your time is up to you, because different people have different priorities in their life.

What is the sport to lose some weight? Any sport will do! But if you really want to lose some weight, it's best to lift weights, and end your workout with cardio in a treadmill. I will post some more about this later. Whatever sport you want to do, DO IT SERIOUSLY. Don't just join a gym to sit around, playing with your phone, and lift some weight occasionally. Work your body out, and mean it!

4. Review your menu. This is the most important part. How many times do you eat in a day? Many people think it's best to eat less when they should've consume less calories. For example, when you usually eat 2500 calories a day, lessen it into 2000 calories. It's better than lessening it into 1000 calories. Calorie deficiency will make your body turn into "survival mode", and won't burn your fat.

How many calories you have to consume can be calculated using the BMR calculator. Our body lower its metabolism when we're trying to eat less than a day (i.e. from 3 times a day into twice a day). We'll get hungry at first, but after 1 or 2 weeks, we'll get used to it, and won't get hungry even if we only eat twice a day. Hunger disappearance is a sign that our body burns less calories. The longer we're getting used to it, our body will adapt, and it will be harder to lose some weight.

5. Eat 5 or 6 times a day. Normally people eat 3 times a day, when in fact, our body was designed to eat more than that. When we have breakfast at 7 AM and eat lunch at 1 PM, we'll get hungry at 10 AM. When you have lunch at 1 PM and eat dinner at 7 PM, at about 4 PM we'll get hungry. This "hunger" usually be filled with junk foods (high-calorie foods, but not very filling because they contain minimum nutrition, thus making us fat).

Fill these in-between meals with high-nutrition snacks, such as apples and skimmed milk, or almonds and apples. In total, you'd eat 6 times, with 3 meals and 3 snacks. This is a sure way to stabilize your metabolism and will surely burn your fat faster. When you want to lower your calorie consumption from 2500 into 2000, divide the 2000 calories into 6 meals. Once again, to lose some weight, you lessen the calories, not the eating frequency. You can see the meal plan here, for an example of eating 6 times a day.

I Heart Coffee? Think Again

Well I don't like coffee that much, actually. But my mum is a coffee drinker, and I know some people who actually survive on the coffee that they drink every morning. Anyway, before this post turn into some kind of rambling about some people in my life who loves coffee, then I should start by stating that people who drinks coffee in huge sum but doesn't have a healthy diet tend to suffer on heart arrhythmia (commonly known as heart disease).

image credit to coffee-cereal.com

Some Italian researchers surveyed their patients who recently diagnosed with heart arrhythmia to know their eating habits, including caffeine intake. Their eating pattern then compared with people who does not suffer on heart arrhythmia. They announced the results on annual meeting of European Society of Cardiology in Barcelona.

In that research, daily coffee consumption was divided into 4 categories: low (1 cup/day), average (2-3 cups/day), high (more than 3 cups/day), and no consumption at all. The patients are also categorized based on their adherence to Mediterranean diet, which is rich on whole-wheat, olive oil, fruits and vegetables, but low on red meats.

Based on this research, people who suffers on heart arrhythmia does not adhere to the Mediterranean diet, compare to those who does not suffer on heart arrhythmia. Patients suffering heart arrhythmia also consumes more red meats and high-fat milk.

What's interesting is that patients with arrhythmia consume more antioxidants from coffee than other foods such as fruits, vegetables, and wine, as the researchers said.

Die-hard coffee drinker also prone to heart arrhythmia than those who drink less coffee. In heart arrhythmia, both heart atrium vibrates in an abnormal manner, which caused heart palpitations (poundings), asphyxiate, fatigue, and higher risk of stroke.

In conclusion, it's better to balance out your coffee consumption with healthy foods and drinks. I'll definitely post about the goodness of coffee in the future :)

Eggs and Cholesterol

Sometimes we heard some people say that they don't want to eat eggs because it's high in cholesterol. Well, it is high in cholesterol, and consuming foods that are high in cholesterol daily can lead to increasing cholesterol level in your blood. However, nevertheless, a lot of researchers believe that saturated fat and trans-fat have bigger impact on the increase the cholesterol level.

image credit to heartheavy.com

The American Heart Association (AHA) claimed that as long as you can limit the cholesterol consumption out of all the other foods, it is very good to add eggs into your daily healthy diet, considering that eggs are good sources of protein.

Fact is, one egg contains about 213 mg of cholesterol in its yolk. If you're in healthy condition, it is better to limit your cholesterol consumption in less than 300 mg a day. However, if you got some health problems such as heart disease, diabetes, or your LDL (bad cholesterol) level is high, then it's better to limit your daily cholesterol consumption into less than 200 mg.

So, if you already consumed one egg a day, then it's better if you limit or even avoid another consumption of cholesterol from other foods in that day. However, if you really have a egg-craving day (those days exist, folks), then just consume the egg white, since it doesn't contain cholesterol.

In conclusion, you don't have to worry about consuming eggs. You just have to control the sum and the frequency. Eggs are good sources for protein, easy to digest, and easy-to-get animal protein. Therefore, consuming eggs (especially the egg whites) will be good for your diet :)

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?

10 Healthy Foods for a Healthy Heart

Heart attack is the most dangerous disease in the world, with increasing patients every year. One of the cause of this disease is wrong meal pattern. Foods these days usually contain high cholesterol, which can clog your blood vessels. In this article, I will share about the ten foods that are good for your heart.

image credit to healthyfoodssite.com

1. Fresh Fish
Fish contains many Omega 3 fatty acids, which can lower your triglycerides level and lower your blood pressure. Consuming fishes with high Omega 3 once or twice a week can lower the chance of coronary death as high as 36%.

2. Tea
Tea are high on polyphenolic antioxidants. Scientists believe that polyphenols can prevent us from bad cholesterol (LDL) from oxidation that can clog our blood vessels. Click here for my post about green tea.

3. Beans
Beans are low in fat but high in vitamin B, folate, potassium, iron, magnesium, fiber, protein, and phytochemicals (a compound in plants that can help prevent some chronic diseases, including cardiovascular diseases). Black beans, red beans, navy beans, peas, and kidney beans are few of the beans that are good for our heart.

4. Paprika
Paprika are high on vitamin C, potassium, vitamin A, and antioxidants. Potassium helps balance the fluids and cells ratio in muscle contractions. People with high blood pressure are recommended to fulfill the needs for potassium from fruits and vegetables to balance the blood pressure.

5. Green Vegetables
Green vegetables contain many fibers, carotenoids, folate, phytochemicals, magnesium, potassium, and calcium. Carotenoids are pigments with antioxidants that can lower the chance of heart attacks, which are available in fruits and vegetables with bright colors.

6. Orange
Besides the fact that it's high on vitamin C, oranges also high on folate, antioxidants, phytochemicals, potassium, and fibre. Vitamin C are good to increase our immunity, and the fibers on oranges can also help reducing the cholesterol in our blood.

7. Wheat
Wheat are good calorie sources that are also rich in fibers, vitamins and minerals, iron, magnesium, and folate. Some studies have tied a connection between wheat consumption to reduce cholesterol and cardiovascular disease-prevention. Wheat cereals, oats, and wheat pasta are some of the good foods that are good for your heart.

8. Garlic
Studies show that garlic have some influence in lowering the risk of cardiovascular diseases. Garlic is better to eat fresh.

9. Berries
Berries are higher in antioxidants than any other fruits and vegetables. A study in Finland also shows that eating berries can also increase the HDL level and lowering the blood pressure.

10. Rice
A study indicates that by consuming rice you'll get 12 essential vitamins and minerals, including folic acid, potassium, and vitamin C with lower saturated fat than those who doesn't consume rice. This study also indicates that consuming rice can also lower the risk of blood pressure and heart disease.

In the end, knowing what's good for your heart is not enough. Get some workout regularly too :)

Count Your Calories

To this point, I've posted a lot about diet and how to live a healthy life, while mentioning a lot about calories. So now, I'm going to post about what are calories and how it work.

Calories work like fuels for your body, where it burn food in forms of calories so that it can produce energy. Nutritionists measures the sum of heat that our body produces from food metabolism in a unit called kilo-calories (kcal). For example, there are 105 calories in a banana. Therefore, our body can produce 105 calories of energy to do some activities.

image credit to health.howstuffworks.com

At this point you'll probably wonder which food can be regarded as a high-calorie foods. The answer is based on what kinds of nutrition are in those foods. In example, 1 gram of carbohydrates contains 4 calories, 1 gram of proteins contains 4 calories, and 1 gram of fat contains 9 calories.

In other words, one gram of protein or carbs gave more than half of calories in 1 gram of fat. This is why high-fat foods such as fried foods contains more calories than low-fat foods such as vegetables and fruits.

But still, it's not easy to calculate the calories, because foods usually contains many kinds of nutrition. For example, a skinless chicken breast and a burger both contains high protein. However, 100 grams of chicken breast has 140 calories while 100 grams of burger contains 270 calories.

All foods has calories, and all calories produces energy. However, not all calories carry good nutrition such as amino acid, fatty acid, fiber, vitamin, mineral, etc. Some foods even regarded as "zero calories". It's a term for calories with little or no nutrition at all, like granulated sugar and ethanol (aka alcohol in alcoholic drinks). Sugar and ethanol can give some energy, but contains no nutrition whatsoever.

Be wise in choosing your healthy and right calories for your body. If you want to lose weight, the number of calorie-intake should not be more than the energy you use, because the excess calories will be stored as fat. Start counting your calories now!

About Detox Diet

Have you ever heard of a detox diet? Some people say this diet works, because they lose quite a lot of weight. But is it really that effective?

image credit to amazon.com

Detox diet remains a controversy everywhere. One research indicates that our body itself has its own 'detox machine', so without any detoxing intended, it can removes all the unnecessary toxins. Some research already compared two people on diet; one with regular diet, and one with detox diet. In a few days, they compared the urine and the feces, whether they contain some toxins or minerals. Turned out, there's no difference between the two of them. From that research, we can conclude that detox diet is not useful, because our body has its own way to detoxify.

The second approach of the detox diet is to find out the cause of allergy. For example, you only eat some fruits for a few days, and eat some other foods the day after, and some protein in the next, to review the body's reaction to those substances. In some cases, this method can find out which food is the allergen to your body.

The other result from this diet is significant weight loss, because, well, eating fruits will definitely turn your calorie intake to the minimum, and this will make you lose a lot of weight. However, this method is not healthy because the weight you lose is actually your muscle mass (and this is something you should definitely avoid). Weight loss from fat-burn is not that fast. Sadly, this is what people want, to lose weight quickly, even if that's not what detox diet was originally meant to do.

So we're back to the question whether detox diet is a good choice to lose weight. Well it's not, because the weight you lose in detox diet is your muscle mass, this also degrades your metabolism. Not long after losing a few kilos, you will gain weight - in what some people call "the yo-yo effect". There are still a lot of ways - healthy ones - to lose some weight.

Green Tea vs Fat

Good news for tea lovers! In an article entitled "Efficacy of a Green Tea Extract in Catechin Polyphenols and Caffeine in Increasing 24-h Energy Expenditure and Fat Oxidation in Humans", they have researched whether green tea extract - which contains caffeine and high atechin polyphenols - can increase the energy energy expenditure and fat oxidation in humans. You can read the abstract and download the article here.

image credit to worldhealth.net

In conclusion, the caffeine in the green tea can improve the fat-burning process. It also plays a role in the control of body composition in a thermogenic and/or fat oxidation.

What are you waiting for? Get some green tea now!

7 Fatal Mistakes in Dieting

If you've been following my blog posts since the very beginning, then you'll probably get some of the mistakes that people often do in their diet. This time, I'm gonna list the most common mistakes, that might seem to be ordinary, but can be fatal to your body.

1. Deliberately Starving Yourself
People generally think that eating too much food can make them gain weight, so to lose some, they will cut back on their eating. Sometimes they even hold back their hunger and not eating. The truth is, starving can decrease your metabolism, which - and I've said this so many times before - will slow down your fat-burning process.

This will also cut off your energy, and make you feel like you're not fit and limp. Starving also means that your stomach is empty and your blood sugar has wear off, while at the same time, your brain needs it. This is why most people get dizzy, or - if it gets worse - they faint. The same thing happens to people who only eats once or twice a day to lose some weight. You should eat five to six times a day (yes, you're reading it right), with three meals and three snacks in between so that your metabolism stays high. You can read the meal plan to lose weight here.

2. Skipping Breakfast
People usually just skip it for several reasons, either they have no time to do it, or not used to eating in the morning. The fact is, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. After sleeping for about 8 hours without any nutrition, our body needs it on breakfasts and to get through the day with full energy. Skipping breakfast can make your body go catabolic, in which it gets the energy from our muscles.

3. Skipping Dinner
People do this under the assumption that they don't need to eat before they sleep. Well of course our body don't need many calories - especially carbohydrates - when we sleep. However, we need some proteins while we sleep, because at this time our body will produce growth hormone, and will automatically "fix" the broken cells within. It's better if you consume some protein about 2 to 3 hours before you sleep. Carbs only good as long as it's 4 hours before you sleep.

4. Not Eating after Sports or Workouts
People usually assume that eating after sports or workouts is a waste, because they burn so many calories already, right? What they don't know is that eating after workouts are the most important meal for our body to get the results! Imagine you're tearing down the wall in your room to repair it (working-out), and when you call a handyman to fix it, you don't prepare the bricks and the cement (not eating). If this goes on, your body will break down. It's highly recommended if you drink some protein and carbohydrate at least 15 minutes after a workout, and get some real food 1 hour after a workout to "repair" your body.

5. Not Drinking Enough Water
Fact is, not enough water can make your body hold back more water which can add additional weight into your body. It can also interfere with your metabolism and digesting system. Drink 2 to 3 litres of water daily.

6. Crash-Dieting
These kinds of diet are the ones that deliberately omitting one component to reach its goal, such as no-fat diet, no-carbs diet, or high-protein diet. This is not a balanced diet, and can be fatal to your body. The fact is, fat has got an important role in our body, which is to help the absorption of vitamins A, D, E, and K. If we don't consume any fat at all, then our body will run short of these vitamins, and can lead to some serious diseases. Not eating carbohydrates at all is also dangerous because our body needs it as energy sources, as does our brain need it to think. The best diet is the balanced diet, not the ones that omits one kind of nutrition that our body needs.

7. Have a Cheat-Day
Some people on diet have a cheat day to eat freely, and this usually happens on Sundays. Having these cheat day, is as if you're rewarding yourself after you overcome the six days of dieting. Diet is actually a lifestyle, and having a cheat day will program your brain that the six days before are days of hell. If you gone through this pattern, you will get tired of dieting, and eventually stops dieting. See it as some kind of lifestyle, and not as a requirement.

Well that's a long post, isn't it? Have you done any of those things? If you do, then change it RIGHT NOW. Simple mistakes in dieting can lead to some serious disease, and that's definitely not what you want.

Get Some Workout!

Sports are one of the most effective ways to burn your excess fat. Besides that, one of the many advantages of doing sports are: preventing chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, stroke, etc; improving your sleeping quality; strengthening the bones; improving your stamina and energy; and the most important thing is improving your metabolism so it can burn more fat.

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Lifting weights are one of the ways to improve your muscle mass.

Why?

Because muscles are one of the tissues that constantly burn calories, even when you sleep. Hence, muscle growth means slow but continuous fat-burning process without any efforts.

Yes, girls, you have to lift some weights too. You won't get all muscly like a guy, because girls, unlike boys, lack the testosterone - which is the hormone for muscle-growth - and won't have muscles as big as boys do. In fact, lifting weights will tighten up your muscles and get you in shape!

The right supplement can also help you get in shape. For example, fat-burning supplements can fasten up your metabolism, ease your appetite, and most importantly, help your body burn off the fat. Meanwhile, protein supplements can help you meet your daily protein requirements, as the multivitamin and multi-mineral supplements does in for your daily vitamin and mineral requirements.

Get in shape now by doing some workouts!