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.

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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 Best Post-Workout Meals

During a workout, our body needs enough nutrition as its fuel to create the energy. These energy will wear off eventually after the workout, right? Therefore, we need more healthy food to recharge the lost energy. If our body lost its energy for too long, it can cause muscle spasms and catabolism.

Here are 5 best post-workout meals you can consume after a workout:
1. Chicken Breast with Veggie Mix
100 grams of skinless and boneless chicken breast contain about 29 grams of protein, which can help the recovery and muscle developments after a workout. Meanwhile, a mix of vegetables contain many kinds of vitamins and minerals that are essential for our immunity.

2. Eggs and Avocado
No doubt that eggs contain enough protein, especially in its whites. Egg yolks contain phosphatidylcholine which can be useful to prevent the accumulation of fat and cholesterol in the liver. Yolks are also rich in choline, which can increase the heart, brain, and membrane cell functions. One egg contain about 300 mg of choline and 315 mg of phosphatidylcholine.

Avocado also have high nutritional value. It contain at least 11 vitamins and 14 minerals. It's also rich in protein, riboflavin (vitamin B2), niacin (vitamin B3), potassium, and vitamin C (vitamin needed for body recovery).

3. Salmon, Spinach, and Yam (Sweet Potato)
Salmon are rich in protein and Omega 3 fatty acid. The protein in a salmon is good for muscle growth, while the Omega 3 fatty acid are useful to reduce muscle damage after a workout.

Spinach are high in iron, an important mineral for muscle formation. Iron is also an important component in hemoglobin, the part in our blood that distributes the oxygen throughout the body.

Sweet potatoe (yam) is one kind of complex carbohydrate, which are also equipped with easy-to-digest vitamins and minerals. It's also a good energy source, especially after a workout.

4. Tuna and Brown Rice
Potassium and essential fats in a tuna helps control the blood pressure. The Omega 3 fatty acid can also help prevent rheumatic, while the selenium are useful in detoxifying process, especially in the liver.

Brown rice are high in fiber, which helps in indigestion and are suitable to be consumed after a workout. It won't increase the blood sugar, thus reducing the risk of diabetes.

5. Whey Protein
Besides the fact that it's good to be consumed before a workout, whey protein are also good to be consumed after a workout. Whey protein are a protein supplement in the form of a milk, making it easier to be absorbed. Research indicates that whey protein can fasten the muscle recovery process and maximizes the muscle formation after a workout.

Those are the 5 best post-workout meal that you can consume after a workout. The right meal after a workout can really get you faster to the results you've been fighting for!

5 Things to Get Rid of for a Healthier Life

Health is our most important asset. It's only natural that we have to try to keep it and let go of the unhealthy habits. Some people might not notice that some of these habits are not supposed to be preserved. In this post, I will share some of the unhealthy habits that can really ruin our health.

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1. Smoking
Smoking is the main cause for lung cancer and other kinds of diseases. The best thing you can do is by stop doing it. But still, one does not simple stop smoking, especially when they've became addicted to nicotine. However, the simplest thing you can do to reduce your smoking habit is exercising, until you're used to not smoking any more.

2. Drinking
Binge drinking is clearly ruining your health, as fun as it might be. This habit can cause alcohol poisoning, brain damage, and can also damage the cardiovascular system. To prevent those dangerous side effects, you can also substitute your white wine with red wine, considering red wine have some health merits with the right amount.

3. Eating Junk Food
Those food really live up to their name: they're junk food, literally. It contains loads of saturated fat, which can clog your artery, not to mention obesity. If you want to order these foods, choose places that provide healthier food, adding some salad to make it healthier. Try to not eat it too often.

4. Stress
Coping with stress is not an easy thing. As humans, we have many causes of stress that sometimes complicates things. The right thing to do is managing it. Pick the right way and strategy that can help you cope with your stress. Some people do their hobby, but workout can be really helpful. Doing simple exercises, yoga, pilates, or meditation can help a lot.

5. Lack of Exercise
Need I say more? Working out clearly increase your health. Cardio training can improve your cardiovascular system, while weight training can strengthen your body. The most common problem has always been with laziness. Doing some workout regularly and making it your routine can really solve this problem.

Let's face it, all five habits above are generally known as bad habits. I don't even think my explanation is really needed, right?

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.

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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!

Choosing the Right Low-Fat Products

Obese people, or other people with high fat and high cholesterol usually have to reduce their fat consumption, and this warning usually make people consider about buying "low-fat" or "fat-free" products. However, be careful, because not all of those products are healthy products like they advertise it.

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To keep the original taste in low-fat products, producers replace the fat content with huge amount of sugar. The results are, some "low-fat" products actually contain more calories than the "regular" products! Whereas, in a diet to lose some weight, carbohydrate consumption has to be reduced, especially simple/fast-absorbing carbs like sugar - which have high glycemic index (GI) - will be stored as fat anyway.

Besides that, some of those products also contain trans-fat, which not only increase the LDL (bad cholesterol) content, but also lower the HDL (good, protective cholesterol) content. Fact is, the increasing number of obesity in our society is one of the main factors of the proliferating low-fat products. The vigorous advertisements, especially the ones in TVs, make people think that consuming those low-fat products means they consume healthy foods.

Based on the facts above, you should carefully check the nutrition facts of the product that you're going to buy. Products with 1-2 grams of sugar is enough, but above that, it's too high for those of you who's been trying to lose weight.

For your diet, choose complex carbs such as brown rice, whole wheat bread, and oatmeal. Limit your fat consumption, and choose those that are good for you, like canola oil, olive oil, etc. If you want to lower your LDL consumption and increase the HDL, you also need fiber from veggies, fruits, beans, and also oatmeal. Remember to exercise regularly too!

Diet Soda: Better Than Regular Soda?

People often consume diet soda in order to replace the regular soda-consumption, which, as we all know, contains high sugar and calories. Consuming diet soda in a reasonable amount - say, 1 can a day - is considered safe, because the sweetener and the chemicals contained in it is still within the safe limits for most people.

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But still, diet soda is not a healthy drink for you, especially those in diet. Even if replacing regular soda drinks with diet soda reduces significant amount of calories, but a lot of research indicates that the more soda you consume - diet soda or regular soda - your appetite will grow, heightening the risk of obesity and other related diseases such as diabetes mellitus or osteoporosis.

Other research also finds that consuming more than 1 can of carbonated drinks a day will increase the risk of metabolic syndrome as much as 40%. Metabolic syndrome is the main cause for heart disease and diabetes.

There are still a lot of healthier drinks around. The best one there is, is of course regular water, 8 glasses a day. For some variations, instead of drinking carbonated drinks, you can also consume juice, low-fat milk, of green tea. Bottoms up!

High-Quality Sleeps for You!

In the previous post, I've stressed that it's important to have enough rest for your workout to get your results. However, some people still can't get the results even if they have enough sleep. It simply means their sleeping quality is not good enough. There are many tips and suggestions on how to improve your sleep quality, though.

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Here are some "good habits" for better quality of sleep:
1. Do some workout regularly. Have some time to workout everyday. Any simple exercise will do.
2. No caffeine after 7 PM.
3. One hour before you sleep, don't do any work or activity that needs you to think hard and concentrate.
4. Adjust your room temperature to be cooler.
5. Turn off the lamps in your room. Research indicates that even the dim light from digital alarm will disrupt the sleep. Nowadays there are a lot of glow-in-the-dark things, which also disrupt the sleep.
6. Tidy up your bed. A messy bed will definitely mess up with your sleep.

If you have trouble sleeping, try to do some of these tips:
1. Take a slow and deep breath as long as you can.
2. If you have many things in your mind (ex. planning your your vacation, making a shopping list, concerned about your medical diagnosis, etc.), write it down. This usually helps a lot.
3. Pamper yourself with body lotion. Besides the fact that it relaxes you, if you have trouble sleeping because it's too hot, body lotion will cool you down.
4. If your feet is cold, wear socks. Some people even wear this because it calms them down.
5. Relax. Do simple stretching if you need to.
6. Some people claim that warm milk contains melatonin and tryptophan, natural supplements that can help you sleep. However, a glass of milk does not contain enough of those substance to actually help you sleep. But still, it can be quite a relaxing drink.
7. Yawn.

If you have some trouble sleeping, just think of it as an extra time off your daily schedule. You can use that time to do some chores that you haven't done, like tidying up your books or something. The next morning, you'll feel glad because you feel like you achieve something even if you just started your day.

Try to apply those simple tips to have high-quality sleeps and get ready to face your day!

Two Body Weight Training for Women

A lot of women - and men, apparently - are not interested to do body weight training, thinking that the body weight training they can do is only push-up or sit-up. In this post you'll discover two best body weight training besides push-up or sit-up, which not only will help you get the ideal body, but also increase your strength.

Plank is an effective training to help you train your body core stability, while strengthening your abdomen, lower back, torso, and legs. Here are two plank training that you can do:

Walkout Plank
To make your body fit and strong enough to train a harder training like push-up, you have to have a strong core muscles. The core muscles are the muscles that are essential in your daily activities, such as standing up,  sit down, lying down, facing down, and many more. This is why you have to strengthen the power and stability of your core.

Walkout plank is one of the best training you can do to train your core. This body weight training is also known as plank to push-up. To do this training, start by assume your body into downward facing-dog yoga position.

image credit to yogajournal.com

After that, while keeping the legs straight and the abs tight, walk the hands out as far as possible (usually up to the push-up position). Then, still keeping the legs straight, walk the feet back up to the hands.

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Static Plank
Just like walkout plank, this training is very effective. The difference is that walkout plank is more dynamic than static plank, because in static plank you have to hold a plank position within a certain period of time. This training will increase your core's strength,

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To get the maximum results, make sure you do it with the right technique and motion to prevent injuries and strengthening your body.

Watch Out, We Got a Fat Belly Over Here! (Part 2)

After the reading the previous article, you know what caused the fat belly. In this post, we will explore more about the health risk of having a fat belly.

- Cancer
Fat belly is associated with many risks of cancers, including endometrial (cancer in uterus layer), colon, gall bladder, prostate, kidney, and post-menopausal breast cancer. Women who gain weight more than 10 kg since they're 18 until they are middle-aged increased the risk of post-menopausal breast cancer twice than women with stable weight.

-  Fatty Liver
The main cause of fatty liver for non-alcoholic people is insulin resistance, a metabolic interference where the cells are not sensitive to the effects of insulin. One of the most common risk factors for insulin resistance is obesity, especially central obesity. Study shows there are close association from obesity and the degree of liver damage.

- Breathing Problem
Obstructive sleep apnea (breathing disruption whilst sleeping) generally occurs to overweight people. Obesity is related to the increase of asthma risks and severe bronchitis, and also obesity hypoventilation syndrome, and breathing insufficiency.

- Arthritis
Musculoskeletal disorders, including osteoarthritis, generally occurs to obesity patients, especially patients diagnosed with chronic obesity. Health research indicates that obesity is a strong predictor for osteoarthritis disorders, especially in the knee. The risk of osteoarthritis increase with every 1 kg of weight increase.

- Social and Psychological Impact of Obesity
Emotional impact might be one of the hurtful fact of being obese. Our society these days emphasize on physical appearance which is close to being thin (or skinny), especially on women. This will make overweight people feel like they are not attractive.

image credit to fat2abs.org

Preventing instead of Curing
After knowing the health risk of the accumulation of visceral fat in a fat belly, it's only natural if you want to prevent it before it risks your health. Therefore, if you still have a fat belly right now, or have no problem having a fat belly and still want to prevent it, start doing these steps regularly:

- Do 30 to 45 minutes of cardio 4 to 5 times a week
- Consider to start lifting some weight. Lifting some weight regularly will increase your muscle mass, and the more muscle you have more fat will be burn, lowering the risk of fat accumulation in your belly.
- Adjust your diet. It's better to not consume high fat and high calorie food to prevent the accumulation of new fat. Eat more veggies and fruits.

Therefore, if you want a six-packs abs, you have to get rid of all the fat in your belly. The abs muscle won't show up as long as there are some fat layering your belly. Aside from that, avoid central obesity earlier by working out regularly and eat healthier food to have optimal health quality.

Watch Out, We Got a Fat Belly Over Here! (Part 1)

Take a look at your belly in the mirror. Do you feel like your belly is too big and fatty? Now this is the time for you to know the dangers of having a fat belly so you can take the right steps to avoid the health risks!

Fat belly, also known as central obesity, is fat accumulation in your stomach, causing the increase of stomach size and the area around the waist. Central obesity was known to have some relations to many health problems. So what caused the central obesity?

There are two kinds of fat in our body. There's subcutaneous fat, the layer of fat under the skin. There's also visceral fat, also known as intra-abdominal fat, which accumulated under the fat and surrounds vital organs, including in the fat belly. The liver will metabolize this fat into blood cholesterol, making it dangerous for your health.

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Here are some of the factors which is causing the accumulation of fat in your stomach:
- Genetic factor
- The habit of eating high-fat and high-calorie foods
- Excess consumption of saturated fat
- Lack of workout and other physical activities
- Stress

Health Risk from a Fat Belly
Central obesity itself is categorized as a disease which have many other negative impacts, either for your physical health or your psychological health. Here are some other diseases which can be caused by central obesity

- Premature Death
According to Centers for Disease Control (CDC), about 300,000 deaths a year in America was estimated to be related to obesity. People with obesity have 50 to 100% increase of premature death compared to people with healthy "weight".

- Health Disease
The risk of heart attack, heart failure, sudden death, or chest pain from heart disease is increasing for those with obesity or overweight people. Obesity is also associated with high blood pressure, high triglycerides, and degrading HDL cholesterol (good cholesterol)

- Stroke
Atherosclerosis, or blood vessels constriction - which can cause blood coagulation - is the condition which started many stroke accidents. Atherosclerosis is triggered by high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, and lack of workout. Obesity also associated with high-fat diet or meal plan, causing the increase of blood pressure. Therefore, obesity was regarded as the secondary risk which can cause stroke.

- Diabetes Type 2
Weight increase of 5 to 10 kg from a healthy weight will increase the risk of having diabetes type 2 about twice compared to those who have a "normal" weight. More than 80% of people with diabetes was known to be overweight or suffering obesity.

Besides many health risks above, there are also a few dangerous diseases that can caused by having a fat belly. More on the next post!

Blame It on the Alcohol. Really?

When I mentioned alcohol, most people will immediately think about partying and get drunk. But is it really that bad? Are there any benefits of alcohol for our health?

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Like any other things in life, it's good when you have enough. Consuming the right amount of alcohol can give you some health benefits. Fact is, alcohol can lower the risk of heart disease, heart attack, stroke, gallstone, and diabetes.

On the other hand, if you consume too much alcohol, it will definitely increase the risk of:
- pancreatic, mouth, throat, and liver cancer
- swelling of the pancreas
- dying of heart attack
- high blood pressure

Unfortunately for some people, alcohol is a big no-no. For those of you who had some stroke (from hemorrhaging), have liver or pancreatic illness, or in the middle of a healing process, ALCOHOL IS A BIG NO.

So you can see that alcohol is actually a double-edged sword for your health. About 355 ml of beer and 150 ml of wine twice or thrice a week is good for you.

Make Your Weight Training Count!

Face it, nobody wants to spend hours in gym without some results. Fact is, you can do short workouts and make it count if you want to maximize your workout program.

Here are some tips for you who might have trained for some time, but wants better results in shorter amount of time of workout.

1. Limit your workout duration. Some people think that to have maximum results is to linger around and lift weights for a long time. Fact is, after 30 to 40 minutes, the benefits of your workout is not the same as when you start your workout in that day. It's better if you do high-intensity workout in shorter amount of time.

2. Prioritize your 'quality' instead of your 'quantity'. Doing 8 reps the right way is better than doing it wrong for 20 reps.

3. Lift your weight slowly. Weight-lifting is not a 'fast' sport anyway. According to researchers in Wayne Westcott, to lift one weight normally it needs about 1 minute. Doing the reps correctly is an important part in weight-lifting. You won't get any results when you do it wrong.

4. Breathe. The right breathing techniques can make your workout more effective. Focus in breathing out when you lift the weight and breathe in when you lower the weight.

5. Maintain a good posture. This is important to make sure that you are training your muscles instead of injuring yourself. When you sit down, sit in an upright position. Make sure your abs contracts when you're training. Pull your abs upwards and into your spine to stabilize your body. Maintain this position so that your shoulder is pulled back and your chest is contracted forward, even if you're sitting down or standing up.

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6. Avoid working out continuously. Your muscles need some rest before another training. Make sure you have some day off in your training.

7. Train with your mind. When you lift some weight, make sure your mind doesn't wander off. You have to FOCUS to what you're doing because there's a close relation between your brain, your nerves, and your muscles. This means, no cellphones during your set. Just saying.

8. Do one set to failure, but that doesn't mean you have to failure your sets repeatedly. It's better if you do just 1 or 2 sets with heavier weight for maximum results.

9. Choose a cardio that you like. If you do workouts that you don't like, you won't enjoy it. Do some fun activities like running, walking, swimming, cycling, hiking, etc.

Many research indicates that when you can focus into your training, you'll get significant muscle enhancement. Therefore, don't read, talk, or text when you're in the middle of your workout and focus your mind to each set, so that every reps and sets will be more effective and you'll get your results faster.

Got Milk?

Having a smooth and healthy skin is every woman's dream. However, many people - men and women - have some trouble with their skin. This is why a lot of cosmetic products claim to fix those problem, making your skin smooth, shiny, and healthy. But do you know that drinking milk daily is effective to make your skin healthy and smooth?

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A lot of skin problems came from stress, unhealthy lifestyle, smoking, ultraviolet radiation, and other kinds of solution, making our skin dry, even cracked. Drinking milk daily is one of the many ways to keep your skin healthy.

Naturally, milk contains vitamin A and D, which smooths your skin. Besides that, other important mineral in milk such as iron, calcium, and copper also have some 'cosmetic' function for you, making your skin healthy and supple.

The protein, calcium, and iron in milk that we consume everyday will also slow down the aging process, while brightening it. This is why, for hundreds even thousands of years, milk is known as women's beauty secret for its benefits of making skin smooth, wrinkle-free, and brighter.

Milk also contains lactic acid, which have the role to moisten the skin naturally, while lifting the dead cells in your body, recovering it to make your skin prettier and healthier.

Therefore, if you want a smoother, brighter skin, start drinking milk daily!