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!

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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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.

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"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 :)

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.

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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!

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.

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 :)

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.

Image credit to healthnutblogger.com

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!

Why Diet Pills Don't Work: Learn About "The Switch"

image credit to saxzilla.com

As beings who always concerns more about what they eat and how it did to their body, women usually take the easy route to be thin.One of these route is by consuming diet pills to burn off the fat in their body. They try many kinds of products from numbers of brands, but their weight won't go down. In this post I will tell you why they don't work.

Imagine that your body is a machine, with a switch on it that only has two functions: STORE FAT and BURN FAT. When you're fat, it's clear that the switch is on the STORE FAT function, and the only way to get thin is to turn it into BURN FAT function.

It's fairly simple to switch your body function into BURN FAT. There are two things that you must do: diet, and workout.

In my previous post, I already told you about the right way to plan your diet, by eating more protein and less carbs. Unfortunately, most people - especially Indonesian and Malaysian - do the opposite. When they eat, usually they eat more rice than side dishes. This is wrong.

Once again, IT IS WRONG. Eat more proteins. Beef, chicken meat, or fish won't get you fat! What makes you fat are all the sauce and the dressings in the dish. You can anticipate it by not getting so much sauce in your plate.

Workout is basically doing some activities to work your body out (well, duh.). To fasten up the result, lift some weights. Women usually don't want to lift some weight, and I will definitely post about this later.

Back to the matter at hand, why don't diet pills work the way they suppose to?

You have to understand first that what those pills do are to 'help' and 'fasten' your effort to burn the fat in your body. Pay attention to the 'help' part. When the pills are helping you, it assumes that your switch is on the BURN FAT mode, which then will be fastened by those fat burner pills.

However, most people only want the instant results, consuming diet pills without minding 'the switch'. So make sure you understand about this before you consume the diet pills.

Same thing happens to those who does liposuction or some other things to lose the fat. These people are usually desperate enough to do those things. No offense, but this is the sad truth. They don't understand about 'the switch' in their body. When they got out of the slimming clinic, they're happy with the results, but in 3 to 4 months, they will gain weight, usually more than they originally weigh.

Still thinking about choosing the easy route? Think again.

Eat More to Lose More. Y U No Understand??

Some people still find it hard to believe that by eating more than 2 or 3 times a day, it can help them lose weight. They still don't understand why by not eating only makes it harder for them to lose weight.

I'm gonna make it easier to understand. Imagine you're working, and you're earning more than you need. So you save it, in case of emergency. Suddenly, you got fired, and got no income.

My question is this: when you got no income, will you use your savings carefully, or start an extravagant life?

This is what I call a survival mode. You know what will happen when you got no income and no savings, right?

The same things happens within your body. When you don't eat, your body will not get the energy it needs, and to survive, it will slow the fat burning process so that it won't run out of "fuel".

When you don't eat frequently, you will not get hungry easily. This is when your body starts to slow down the fat-burning process.

So, if you want to lose weight, start eating more frequently, folks. Try it, and you'll see why ;)