Author's Archive
Is Salt Really Bad For You?
Written by success on Saturday, February 12, 2011 | No Comments
There was been a lot a bad mouthing of salt in the media over the last number of years. Salt intake has been blamed for high blood pressure among other things. But is this really true?
Despite what you hear on your television, it is not true. Your body is pretty amazing. It makes adjustments all the time behind the scenes to prevent your body from getting out of balance. The same is true of your body and your intake of salt. You see there is a hormone in your body called aldosterone. One of its prime functions is to cause the kidney to conserve sodium for your bodily functions. Yes, your body does need sodium. But if you take in too much sodium then aldosterone isn’t released (because you don’t need any more sodium) and your body will excrete the excess sodium. As a result of this hormone the sodium balance in your body will remain normal even when you take into too much salt.
If you eat too much salt your body will get rid of the salt it doesn’t require and it you eat too little salt then your body will try to retain all of the salt that it can get its hands on. This happens with healthy individuals who don’t have blood pressure issues.
If you are salt sensitive or you have already been diagnosed with high blood pressure (hypertension) then you may be one of the few who would benefit from controlling your salt intake. There is about 20 percent of the population that is salt sensitive. However, that means that the majority of us (even those who suffer from hypertension) will not benefit from decreasing the amount of salt that we consume.
Even if you are salt sensitive you might not actually get much of a decrease in blood pressure even if you do lower your salt intake. You see we are too quick to assume something for the entire population just because a few in a test group respond in a certain way.
In fact, the opposite might actually be true. If you are very active (athlete, fitness enthusiast, etc) then you might actually benefit from a high intake of salt. How can this be? Well a high salt intake can result in more overall blood volume and flow to your muscles who are hard at work. This is extremely important because it is your blood that delivers much needed oxygen and nutrients to your muscles. If you are in the habit of drinking something that is high in amino acids before a workout. The greater blood flow will deliver more aminos to your muscles allowing them to synthesize protein more effectively and to recover faster.
Another benefit of salt is that it is used to get potassium to the cell membranes of your muscle tissues. Without going into a bunch of science suffice it to say that without enough salt your body will have to try to get potassium to your cell membranes in another fashion that is not nearly as efficient. Potassium will help with preventing muscle cramping, etc.
You have probably heard it said that if you take in too much salt that you will retain water and look and feel bloated. It is true that salt will cause you to retain water initially but this is not a permanent condition. Remember, when we talked about aldosterone. Well when the bloating occurs, aldosterone will sit on the sidelines and the excess water will then be removed when you go to the bathroom. With the excess water will also go the excess salt.
So decreasing your salt intake is probably not going to do much for you blood pressure and it may actually help your performance if you are more active than most. Salt gets a bad rap for no reason. It makes your food taste better as well.
Isabel De Los Rios expands on the myth that salt is bad for you in this video. In the video she shares 3 of her favorite fat burning foods and talks more about the salt myth.
Why It Is Hard to Get Rid of Belly Fat
Written by success on Saturday, February 12, 2011 | No Comments
Categories: Burn Fat, Metabolism
OK, you recognize that dangers of belly fat and you even believe that you may be at risk. But you have struggled to get rid of belly fat in the past and have not had any success. So why have you struggled? Here are three reasons (among others) that you have struggled.
You Are Stressed Out
Too many of us lead overly stressed lives. If you are overworked or you are not getting enough sleep or you are worrying about finances or the kids or life in general then you are not at peace. You could be said to be out of balance. When this occurs a certain hormone gets out of whack and can lead to a fat belly.
The hormone that gets out of whack is called cortisol. Unfortunately, cortisol is a fat storing hormone. The favorite place for cortisol to store fat is, you guessed it, the belly.
Now your body does this as a precaution or a way of preserving itself. Your body when under stress will store fat in your belly as a way of protecting your internal organs and to use as a quick source of fuel at some point in the future. In a later article, we will go over a few ways to reduce the cortisol levels in your body and in turn eliminate excess belly fat.
You Eat Too Much Garbage
If you are honest with yourself then you will admit that you don’t eat very well. This is the main reason behind all obesity and belly fat. You have spent too much time eating processed food and junk food. The majority of the shelves in our grocery stores are lined with food that is not good for you. Much of the food that you eat is stuffed full of additives, chemicals, man-made preservatives, etc. These things are not good for you.
There are certain additives that will directly lead to obesity. They will have an adverse effect on your belly circumference and on your health. You need to get rid of these additives from your diet.
What is it about these additives that make you fat. A couple of these additives interfere with another hormone called leptin. One of the functions of leptin is to send signals to our brain to let us know that we are full. But if leptin is interfered with then you aren’t notified that you are full and you keep on eating, much more than you should.
Other additives will cause insulin to skyrocket. Insulin will also lead to the storing of fat. These additives will also cause the hormone glucagon to shut down. Some additives will cause weight gain because you are bloated with water all the time. The really bad thing is that some of these additives have been shown to be addictive in nature. They cause us to eat even when we don’t need to. These additives alter the neurotransmitters in our brain and make us crave more of these additives. If you have been struggling with belly fat this may be one of the big reasons.
Another problem with the way that you eat is that you don’t provide your body with the proper nutrients. When this is the case you begin to crave food. Your body needs certain nutrients to make it run efficiently. If you don’t get these nutrients you become more prone to diseases such as heart disease, cancers, etc. Many of the same things that we talked about because of the increase in belly fat. You brain will tell your stomach that you need to eat more because of the craving. However, instead of providing your body with the nutrients it needs you cram for junk food down you pie hole.
All of these additives lead to a toxic buildup in your body. Part of the gut that you are looking at when you stare in the mirror is not fat at all. It is excess waste that is backed up in your colon and intestines because of the way that you have been eating. And if you gut is filled with all of this excess waste then you cannot absorb the nutrients, vitamins, phytonutrients, proteins, etc that you should be. These nutrients are useful in helping your body to burn fat. If you are not getting a good dose of them then you will pile on the belly fat even more.
So you can see that not only to you need to eat better but you need to cleanse your system as well.
Your Metabolism is Busted
If your metabolism is not as high as it should be then you are not burning fat as you should. Even worse a bad metabolism might be in large part to blame for belly fat. How did you metabolism get in this condition?
One reason is that you are not eating enough food. I know that may sound odd after the discussion that we just had but most likely you are not eating enough of the right food and you are not doing it at the right time.
Many people when they want to lose weight will go on a severely restrictive calorie diet. This will work for a short period of time but if you practice this for any length of time then it will backfire on you. Your body will begin to slow your metabolism down. What occurs is that your body goes into self preservation mode and begins to store fat calories for use at some point in the future. Your body thinks it is starving and will preserve fat and begin to use other tissue such as muscle for energy. Any weight loss that you had been experiencing will come to a grinding halt.
At the same time cortisol and insulin also go crazy. As a result, if you want to lose weight you will need to do even more exercise and eat even less.
If your metabolism is slow then you are eating the wrong kinds of food. Certain foods will help speed up your metabolism. These foods require more energy from your body to digest them and burn them up.
We will touch on a few of these foods in a later article. This one has gotten a little long.
If you want to learn more about a few tips and tricks to burn belly fat and lose weight then check out Belly Fat Free.
Key To Fat Loss: All Calories Are Not Equal
Written by success on Friday, February 11, 2011 | No Comments
Categories: Uncategorized
You have been told that if you will simply eat less then you will lose weight. Upon first hearing this it sounds correct, but in truth in can be terribly wrong.
It is true that your calorie intake will affect what you body looks like. But it is not the only factor that will determine if you burn fat or will carry more fat. There are a number of other different factors that also have an influence. Below you will find a few of them.
The Fiber Present in Your Food
Fiber can do more than just help keep you “regular.” Although fiber is a carbohydrate it acts a little differently than the average carbohydrate. For the most part fiber goes undigested. Each gram of fiber will contain four calories just like that average carbohydrate however since much of it is not digested and absorbed it does not affect you as much. Think about it. Many foods are high in fiber. If you were to eat more of them and from 1/3 to ½ of the calories were not digested, how good do you think that would be for you? After all, why do you think that fiber keeps you regular? It is because it is not digested easily and make you have to “go” more often.
The Glycemic Index of Your Food
The glycemic index was created so that you would know how quickly a particular food will enter your bloodstream as sugar. Did you think that only sugar entered your bloodstream as sugar? This is far from true. In fact, many of the carbohydrates that you eat will be broken down as sugar. How do you think that we got so fat as a nation when we embarked on low-fat diets? The average low-fat diet is loaded with carbohydrates that were converted to sugar and then got stored as fat. You may have even gotten fatter on that low fat diet. Maybe you ate too many low-fat danish. Foods that are high on the glycemic index also create another potential problem: high blood sugar. This makes sense because the carbohydrates are broken down into sugar and then loaded into your bloodstream. When this occurs your body goes into action. It does not want too such sugar in your bloodstream so your body sends a hormone called insulin to the rescue. Insulin is used to remove the sugar from your bloodstream. When insulin removes the sugar it will attempt to store it as glycogen which can be used later as energy. Your body will store very little glycogen at any one time, so the insulin will store the sugar as saturated fat. In case you were wondering, this is not good. You body can also become resistant to insulin. If insulin is always present you body just tends to ignore it and then you have a whole other problem called diabetes. But that is another article.
You want your body to burn fat. But if you are supplying it with a constant supply of sugar through your carbohydrate intake then your body will burn that first and it will never get around to burning the fat. So eat foods that are low on the glycemic index. Your body will thank you.
The Macronutrients in Your Food
Insulin not only removes sugar from your blood stream to store it but it will also do the same with fat. If you were to eat a large high carbohydrate meal that is also high in fat (i.e. pizza) then you have the perfect storm for fat storage. Instead of focusing on foods that are high in carbohydrates you should attempt to eat more protein. Protein has the highest thermic effect of any of the macronutrients. Thermic effect is a fancy of saying the amount of energy that it takes to digest your food. You body works harder and will spend more energy digesting and absorbing protein that it does with carbohydrates or fat. Don’t get me wrong this is not going to make a huge difference but every little bit helps.
The Size and Frequency of Your Meals
If you eat meals more frequently, it will help you to lose fat at a quicker pace. But remember you have to eat smaller meals if you are eating more frequently. When you eat smaller meals you give your body the chance to actually use the nutrients that you just ingested. When you eat a large meal it results in an increased insulin response and greater fat storage. Smaller meals will prevent these spikes in insulin. Also, avoid big meals before you go to bed. You have heard it said many times that this is not good. You do not want to deter overnight fat burning.
So you see it is about more than just the number of calories that you consume, it is equally about the type of calories that you eat.