How to Trim Down Safely

As we all know, most of the people today want to trim down and get rid of their unwanted fats. That according to one survey, one out of three adults wants to trim pounds. Before you take any strongest fat burners you know why not check out your diet first? Maybe you have eaten too much fatty foods and carbohydrates, and are not physically active.

Why not try to cut your fat and carbohydrate diet, just take in what your body needs? Just see to it that you will not  be deficient of essential vitamins and minerals and of non-essentials like antioxidants. Adding regular exercise to your change of diet could not help you lose some weight but will help your body function well too. Taking time to exercise for at least 90 minutes per day could help you a lot.

Overloading of protein or protein supplementation could be treated by our body as extra calories and be converted to fat. So, better stick to a balanced meal, taking in the necessary calories, and avoid extra calories regardless of source. As much as possible, this kind of diet should be started during childhood years to avoid obesity and its harmful effects to our health.

My Potassium Rich Diet

It’s eating time! If we talk about cooking, as for me nothing could beat our all clad copper core set. Since we talked about potassium today, we have baked potato in our table now. As we all know, potato has higher content of potassium than banana.

I cannot get over talking about banana yet, and I hope you’ll bear with me. Yesterday we have a green banana shake, so yummy! I know that we need to base of what we eat on our daily nutritional needs and not on our taste buds will but sometimes my taste buds prevail. Sardines and soy milk are also some of my potassium-rich foods favorite. Yes, too much of potassium in our body is not good. So, we need the help of calcium-rich foods to make our potassium level on its normal level.

I am not afraid that I would suffer from hyperkalemia (high potassium level in the blood), since we eat variety of fruits and vegetables everyday to balance our diet. Let us tackle some more about potassium tomorrow. As for now, my body needs fuel to work properly. It’s eating time!

Health Benefits of Banana

There is no week that we do not have banana supply in our kitchen. It is one of our favorite snacks here in our house. I think it is not just our family’s favorite but a favorite of most people regardless of race. Banana has lots of varieties to choose from thus you will never get bored with it.

Aside from its yummy taste, we can get health benefits out of eating banana. One of my Aunts went to see their family doctor because she felt numbness on one side of her body. And, it was found out that she’s lack of potassium. What is her doctor’s first question to her as he seen my Aunt’s laboratory result? Her doctor asked her if she loves to eat banana or not. Why? Banana is rich in potassium. She was expecting to be given a prescription for her to buy a pill thus she laughingly told us her story while she’s on the way to the market to buy different varieties of banana and some potassium rich food.

If you do not want clogs on your arteries due to Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL cholesterol) or commonly called bad cholesterol, banana is the answer as well. Researchers found out that unripe dried bananas could help a lot in lowering bad cholesterol, the primary cause of cardiovascular diseases. A separate research found out as well that eating 3-6 servings of potassium-rich foods like banana everyday could lower blood pressure thus preventing strokes. Now, I have an excuse why I am not contented of just 1 serving of banana. Wink.

If you are not fond of eating banana, you are missing something. So, go! Eat one now.

How to Boost Your Mental Functioning

spinach

We may accept it or not, mental performance decline as we age. But, it does not mean that we have no control of our aging process, it is just a matter of choice. You can hasten your aging process if you want by taking drugs, drinking alcoholic drinks, smoking, and other unhealthy practices. You can also delay the aging process by practicing healthy lifestyle.

Right diet is part of healthy lifestyle. What we eat plays a great role in how our body function. Chicago Health and Aging Project (CHAP) and National Institute of Aging encourage us to eat 3 servings of yellow, green leafy, and cruciferous vegetables everyday for a slow decline of about 40% in our mental functioning.

Eating spinach, which is a green leafy vegetable, could protect our brain from oxidative stress aside from it reduces the effects of age related decline in functioning of our brain. Vitamin E in spinach and other green leafy vegetables could help lower the loss of mental functioning.

Aside from powerful vitamin E antioxidant in spinach, folate or folic acid, potassium and other antioxidants could boost our neurological health. It was detected that level of folate is low on patients who are suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Why not boost your folic acid level now for you not to suffer from Alzheimer’s disease and improve your motor skills and learning capacity instead by eating 3 servings of spinach and other vegetables everyday?

Protect Your Heart By Eating Spinach

We tackled the health benefits of spinach yesterday and we learned that it is a nutrient-dense food and rich in antioxidants that could protect us from various diseases and cardiovascular protection is one of the health benefits we can get out of eating spinach.

With the said topic, we learned that spinach is rich in vitamins A and C. These two vitamins is not just essential because of their nutrient value but of being powerful antioxidants as well. Vitamin A is a fat soluble antioxidant while vitamin C is water soluble. Vitamins A and C team up could help us by preventing cholesterol to be oxidized.

What is in oxidized cholesterol that we need to be alarmed? If cholesterol is on its oxidized form, it could easily cling and build up on the walls of your arteries. If your arteries are blocked, blood could not easily circulate. At first you may suffer from high blood pressure that could double the workload of your heart in pumping the blood for all the essential elements to be carried to all your cells. Too much of oxidized cholesterol that we commonly term as “bad cholesterol” could result to atherosclerosis, heart attack, or stroke.

Aside from Vitamins A and C, spinach is rich in magnesium. Magnesium could help protect us from heart disease and could lower blood pressure. Spinach is an excellent source of folate or folic acid too. We need folate for our body to convert the harmful homocysteine into a less dangerous bi-products. High level of homocysteine in our body could cause heart attack or stroke. An antioxidant called Factor CO-Q10 plays an essential role in strengthening all muscles in our body, especially our heart muscle that never rest, it continuously work for our body to stay alive and healthy.

A cup of spinach a day will do a lot for us to have a healthy heart and cardiovascular system as a whole. So, never forget to include spinach in your diet.

Health Benefits of Spinach

As one of my friends paid visit to our humble home, she noticed the green leafy plant on our yard that most people treat as unwanted plant. She said, “Convince me, how essential that plant is to our health and site some of its advantages why you guys grow it in your yard.” Of course, she does not know yet that time that the plant she was pointing at is the powerful spinach plant.

I really love to eat green leafy vegetables and spinach is one of my favorites. We grow spinach in our yard so as some of vegetables that do not take large space to grow. As for those who do not know its nutrient dense value, spinach plant is just one of wild plants that manage to survive on its own in our front yard because they easily grow like other unwanted grasses. Me and my friends use its leaves as our “sipa” for our playtime during our childhood days. But, to those who know the health benefits of spinach, they are so precious. In fact, my mom not just waters those precious plants we grow in our yard but cultivate and take care of it.

Who could not remember cartoon character Popeye the sailor man? By consuming spinach, old Popeye could transform himself to a super strong man. We may not feel literally strong like Popeye after we consume spinach, but if you’ll know that it is rich in vitamins (A, B, C, E, K), minerals (calcium, manganese, magnesium, iron, potassium, phosphorus, zinc, copper), fibers and protein you will feel the energy Popeye has experienced upon consuming it, right?

It is not just because of the essential nutrients that spinach could boost good health but its phytochemical contents to that could give us protection against heart disease, arthritis, osteoporosis, skin cancer, colon cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, almost all kinds of cancer and other diseases. Flavanoid contents of spinach could protect us against memory loss and any type of cancer, while its lutein content could promote good eyesight and protect us against cataract and Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD).

Consuming more or less half kilo of spinach a day could produce satiety advantage thus promoting weight loss and talkyloid content in spinach is responsible for this. It may sound not possible for you to consume that much of spinach daily for you to lose weight but incorporating spinach as much as you can and take it raw as much as possible could help, right?

Spinach is so easy to grow, it is wide in distribution. Growing spinach on your yard could not eat much of your time. So, why not let the small space in your yard stays vacant if you can grow a power-boosting plant like spinach? If you have no space to grow or no time to take care a plant, it is very affordable in the market.

The Necessity of Taking A Multivitamins

My younger sibling asked me if it is really needed to take multiple vitamins. As for me, taking multivitamins is necessary only if you cannot meet the  “grow”, “glow” and “go” food groups that your body is needing and if the food you eat is somewhat routine, no variation at all. Those people who has no time to cook and those that are transient who just buy food from nearest restaurants, those that solely depend on the available of food on the restaurant really need to take supplements, I said.

Of course, aside from essential nutrients, we also need antioxidants to fight and sweep away toxins away from our system. Who among us could accomplish eating at least five servings of variety of fruits and vegetables everyday? That is another reason why it has been a necessity to take multivitamins since lots of people are always on the go and prefer to eat food that are easy to prepare, does not require lots of time preparing for it, and could be stock on the kitchen for long period of time without being ruined. Antioxidants and other essential elements could only be found in fresh foods, thus, to compensate for this need people take multivitamins.

It is weekend and we all have time to prepare freshly extracted juice from fruits and vegetables and cook wholesome food. We already discussed about harmful effects of too much of good things, thus, my sister now fully understood when she will take her multivitamin supplement and when not to.

Some of The Things You Need to Consider in Your Meal Planning

What are the things you usually put into consideration if we talk about meal planning? I asked mothers in our neighborhood about it and they said that aside from right nutrition, making the food appealing to their kids are their aim. The color, smell, shape, texture, how the food is prepared and the way the food is presented determine how much the child eat.

Food that are hard to eat or those that requires more effort to kids could be frustrating to them to eat the right amount of food. Also, food that is too hot for the kids could cause them not just mouth burns but total rejection of same food in the future as well.

I hope that it is part of your meal planning  that you let your child be involved in meal preparation. By letting your little kids help you out in the kitchen, they could use all their senses for them to learn about color, texture, size, shape and amount.

A child that is as young as 3-year-olds could snap beans, shell peas, spread sandwich spread on the bread, tear up lettuce, etc. It is just necessary to inculcate on their minds about things you are permitting them to do and those that they should not for safety reasons.

Letting your kids help in preparation of food could make them appreciate more of the food you serve for them aside from it is the right time to teach them about balanced diet. By nature, they are curious and would naturally want to taste food they help you prepare.

Recipes that are too easy to prepare and could let you help your kids should be part of your meal planning aside from taking consideration of the food that are healthy to prepare to help your kids learn to appreciate food by letting them help you out.